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A nurse has adopted an abandoned baby girl who didn’t have a single hospital visitor in five months.
Liz Smith, a nursing director from Massachusetts, USA, was immediately taken with eight-month-old baby Gisele.
‘Who is this beautiful angel?’ she asked the nurse who was wheeling her in, Washington Post reports.
Liz learned that Gisele was a ward of the state and had been born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a result of her biological mother using heroin, cocaine and methadone during pregnancy.
The state took custody of Gisele when she was only three months old, and didn’t have a single visitor in the five months she was in care.
At age 45, Liz had no children of her own but yearned to have a family.
Liz went home that evening and ultimately decided she wanted to be that baby’s mother.
After putting in a request to foster Gisele, Liz visited her room every day and sat next to her crib.
‘I felt that I needed to love this child and keep her safe,’ Liz recalls.
In April 2017, Liz was able to take Gisele home – where her birth parents were granted weekly visits.
But their parental rights were eventually terminated when the state deemed they were unable to adequately care for Gisele.
Finally, in October last year, Gisele was officially adopted into Liz’s care and they became mother and daughter.
Gisele is now aged two and still needs a feeding tube, but is described as ‘energetic and loving’.
‘Her new favourite song is “You Are My Sunshine”,’ Liz said. ‘And every time she sings it, I think to myself, “You have no idea”.’
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